Deportations Devastating Families: The Children Left Behind

ICIRR Deportation Family Crisis Hotline Steps Forward With Compassion and Support – Call 1-855-HELPMYFAMILY (1-855-435-7693)

 A study released Wednesday, November 3, 2011 by the Applied Research Center documents the horror of over 5,000 children of deportees removed from their parents care and placed into the child custody system. A second report by the Applied Research Center documents that in just the first six months of 2011 over 46,000 deportees with U.S. citizen children were deported.

A Freedom Of Information Act by ICIRR has revealed that in the last five years a total of 48,330 immigrants were deported in the Chicago area alone, resulting in 80,550 children losing a parent.

ICIRR has acted by creating a Family Support Network, and a Deportation Crisis Family Support Hotline, stepped forward to organize the “Family Support Network”, a community of faith institutions, social service providers, and attorneys who volunteer to provide emergency support to assist families facing the devastation of losing a loved one to deportation.  

The Family Support Hotline is a 24-hour resource for immigrant families in crisis.  We are grateful to the National Immigrant Justice Center, the Archdiocese of Chicago, and the 167 other social service agencies, attorneys, unions, volunteers, and religious ministers who have partnered with ICIRR to provide necessary emergency services.  

To lend a hand, contact our Hotline Volunteer Coordinator Dagmara Lopez at dlopez@icirr.org.